Two events defined Jericho Toilolo's first year as Cal Lutheran's starting quarterback: He had a couple of phenomenal games, and he very nearly died because of an injury.

It has taken until now — two years later, in his senior season — to put the burdens of both events behind him.

Which he certainly has. Even with the struggles he endured as a junior, Toilolo goes into Saturday's NCAA Division III playoff game at Linfield (Ore.) with an 18-4 record as CLU's starter, including a 14-1 mark in SCIAC play. This year, he and the Kingsmen are 8-1.

"In the long run, that's the only stat that matters," said CLU head coach Ben McEnroe.

And if Toilolo's never quite put together numbers like he had in that fateful stretch as a sophomore — with three consecutive wins, bookended by efforts in which he threw for 464 yards and six touchdowns, and 333 yards and four scores — well, that's just fine with the quarterback from Helix High in San Diego, and with his coaches.

"Although my numbers are down," says Toilolo — he's thrown for 1,784 yards and 15 touchdowns, and is completing 57 percent of his passes — "we won a conference championship because of our running game, and were able to be a complete offense because of our running game."

Which is not to say the 6-foot-1, 185-pound Toilolo isn't still a crucial factor in CLU's offensive success. It's just that what he does now doesn't really lead to gaudy numbers.

"We're looking," says McEnroe, "for a quarterback who's going to understand the run game, understand pass protections, understand the passing game. And Jericho seems to have great mastery of all three of those areas."

Adds offensive coordinator Clay Richardson: "Managing the game — that's his real strength. He is so comfortable running the offense that if we just said, ‘You go ahead and call it,' I imagine he'd be pretty successful with what we're trying to do."

As it is, CLU signals in the plays from the sidelines, but when Toilolo crouches behind center he has the ability to change calls based on the defensive alignment he sees.

"Jericho's got the keys to the offense," says McEnroe. "Clay tells him what we're looking for and gives him some suggestions of what we'd like to check into. But if he sees something, he has the ultimate responsibility to put us in what he thinks is the best play."

The ability to do that, Toilolo says, reflects the difference between where he is now and where he was as a starter in 2007, in terms of knowing the offense and having the composure and leadership skills to employ that knowledge.

Toilolo wasn't originally expected to start in 2007, but was thrust into the job when returning quarterback Danny Jones transferred out after former coach Scott Squires left and McEnroe became head coach.

But his stint as starter came to a crashing halt when he was injured in the second quarter against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, although he stayed in until the game was out of reach, after he'd thrown for four TDs.

"I knew there was something wrong," he recalls. " I was really short of breath after every play, and I didn't know why. I couldn't scream out the cadence, couldn't yell out the plays."

That night, he now admits, he passed out more than once — "I thought I was just dehydrated," he said — and it was teammate Ebere Winston who finally convinced him the next day to go to the hospital.

It turned out Toilolo had a broken rib, which had punctured a lung, and was passing out because of the resulting blood loss. He was told — rather emphatically — that he might well have bled to death had he waited any longer to seek treatment.

"Probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done in my life," Toilolo says now. ". I ended up getting yelled at by almost every nurse and doctor in the hospital for not going to the hospital sooner. And our trainers yelled at me, too."

The fallout from that season was twofold: First, Toilolo had to convince himself he was recovered from an injury that left him almost completely inactive for six months, and forced him to start virtually from scratch in terms of conditioning and weightlifting once he was cleared to resume activity. And Toilolo had to deal with the outsized expectations that came with throwing for 464 yards and six touchdowns in just his second collegiate start.

Clearly, the aftereffects of the injury were tougher.

"It took me halfway through last season to get the image of getting hit out of my head," Toilolo says. " I thought I was (over it), and I kept trying to tell myself I was, but the coaches were showing me in the film, ‘You're not.' You could see it on film — as soon as the play broke down or something went wrong I was running with my head down."

Toilolo says it wasn't until CLU's fourth game, a 44-13 win over Pomona-Pitzer, that he began to feel comfortable. (He threw for 278 yards and three touchdowns that day.) But Richardson said it was in the season's final game, a 24-17 win at Redlands, that he finally reached his full potential.

"He just refused to lose," Richardson said. "It was not anything he said. It was just the way he played. You could see the other guys going, ‘OK, if he's going to play this way, we can play this way.' And we pulled out a game we probably really shouldn't have won."

By then, Toilolo was getting beyond the memories of those two big games a year earlier, which McEnroe believes came in large part from "street-ball plays" as the quarterback free-lanced his way out of trouble.

"There were some magnificent plays on his part," the coach adds. "Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to take anything away from it."

But while it wasn't really what his coaches were looking for, Toilolo had a harder time putting those games behind him.

"I was coming back expecting to put up the same kind of numbers," Toilolo said, "and I was trying too hard to make those kinds of plays, instead of just playing our game. And coming into this year, I decided not to care about the numbers so much instead, just to put us in the right play to be successful, whether it's an 80-yard touchdown or a 5-yard completion."

CLU's 8-1 record, and its first playoff berth in 27 years, attest it was the right approach.

So does Richardson's assessment of his quarterback.

"I wouldn't trade him for anybody in the country," Richardson said.

"I'll take him into any game we have. He's a just a phenomenal person, and he's a tough, tough football player."